Commissioner John McRoberts on the changes within the police force since the death of Mr Briscoe.

Transcript

ALYSSA BETTS, PRESENTER: The Director of Public Prosecutions says the issues were dealt with at the time and it will not be making further comment. The Northern Territory Police Commissioner John McRoberts joined me from Alice Springs to discuss the changes made since Mr Briscoe's death.

John McRoberts, welcome to the program.

JOHN McROBERTS, NT POLICE COMMISSIONER: Thank you.

ALYSSA BETTS: You said on the day the findings were released last year that you hoped Mr Briscoe's death would be a turning point in the way people are cared for when they're in watch-houses, so has it been the turning point that you hoped it would be 12 months on?

JOHN McROBERTS: Well I'm very confident that the changes we identified have been made and most importantly I'm confident that those changes are sustainable in the long term so that never again do we experience an event such as K. Briscoe's death in our care.

ALYSSA BETTS: A couple of problem areas or areas that the coroner identified was the lack of rigorous auditing and oversight of watch-house staffing practices and he also called for nurses to be put into watch-houses. How have the nurses been impacting on the day to day operations?

JOHN McROBERTS: Well I think that's a wonderful initiative. Let's face it - police officers are highly trained police practitioners. They are not health professionals or health practitioners, nor should there be an expectation that they are or indeed they're capable of identifying some of the complicated health issues that people present with when they're taken into custody.

ALYSSA BETTS: If it's a good addition to have though, why don't we have nurses in Tennant Creek at the moment?

JOHN McROBERTS: Well the first thing we identified is let's get nurses into the three watches that have the greatest throughput of people on a daily basis. We also need to recognise that a nurse in a watch-house needs a facility where people can be properly examined, properly treated, their right to privacy can be respected and most importantly we considered that for the time being, Darwin, Alice Springs and Katherine were the most important places to have nurses.

ALYSSA BETTS: The family says it's given up on getting justice - they say they've seen no charges laid, there's been no sackings, no suspensions. If the best they can get is police assurances saying this won't ever happen to someone else's child then has justice actually been done?

JOHN McROBERTS: We deemed it appropriate to take disciplinary action against a significant number of police officers and as is the case with taking any type of action, whether it be disciplinary action or indeed criminal action you need to assess every case on its merits and the disciplinary action that we took was, in my opinion, commensurate with the breaches that were identified. There were no criminal offences identified by the coroner during the inquest and therefore no criminal charges were brought.

ALYSSA BETTS: Systemic changes were ushered in about three years earlier down in Alice Springs when there was a very similar death in custody - Mr Trigger. The Coroner said it was completely unacceptable that it took another death in custody after the Trigger coronial to highlight the persistent systemic failings so did anyone in police senior management ever get demoted or lose their jobs over the Briscoe coronial?

JOHN McROBERTS: Alyssa, the outcome of disciplinary action against individual officers is not something that I believe ought to be aired on this particular program.

ALYSSA BETTS: But isn't it an issue of public confidence if people can't find out whether or not police senior management who ultimately had the finger pointed at them for failing, didn't actually cop any kind of punishment?

JOHN McROBERTS: Alyssa, what I have said and what I maintain and what I say to the Northern Territory public is that we as an organisation took the death of Kwementyaye Briscoe very seriously. I have taken it very seriously.

ALYSSA BETTS: And you might have taken it seriously but if the public cannot find out exactly how you've taken it or how you've meted out the appropriate punishment or disciplinary action then where can you be, where can the public be assured that you've done the right thing?

JOHN McROBERTS: Well the proof will be in making sure that we don't have a similar event ever again. We have the training, we have the policies, we have the procedures, we have the audit processes, we have the best available information technology to monitor prisoners who are in our care, we have nurses in the watch-house who are able to better identify people who have chronic health conditions and need a medical intervention and the most important thing is that we stick to what we have promised the Coroner and ultimately the community that we will do as our part of the deal.